Everyday Miracles

By Josie Sandlin

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and tried to count the stars? Your eyes are instantly drawn to the brightest ones, and you can easily count those. Look, there’s the North Star. There’s the Big Dipper. But the longer you look, the more stars you can see. Some are dim, some twinkling, but all are beautiful. All of them are worth counting, but you find yourself quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of stars.

It’s a similar experience when we try to count God’s works in our lives. We remember the big, bright moments: baptism, miraculous healings, spiritual highs. But the longer we look, the more moments we find. More stars start shining through the darkness. It might be a moment spent laughing with a friend. Hugging a grandparent. Pausing to listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. A hand on your shoulder in a troubled time. Music so beautiful that it brings you to tears. A warm cup of tea on a cold evening. An earnest prayer. A cool weekend in August.

These are the everyday miracles. Alone, they seem dim and unimportant, but together, they make up a lifetime of experience with God. Bright, shining moments are what we remember, but never forget to look for the smaller moments that, because of God’s presence in them, are anything but small. They’re the thousands of teaspoons that fill the rushing river of God’s love for us.

Christian author and songwriter Andrew Peterson writes, “Don’t you feel it in your bones, that something isn’t right here? Something that you’ve always known, but you don’t know why? Cause every time the sun goes down, we face another night here, waiting for the world to spin around just to survive. But when you see the morning sun, burning through a silver mist, don’t you want to thank someone? Don’t you want to thank someone for this?”

I hope we all choose to thank someone for these everyday miracles. Look at all the good that God has given us, and attend to it for a moment. Take a minute to appreciate how, in spite of all the world’s wrongs, there’s still so much that goes so right. God’s creation is full of beauty and miracles if we only pause to look for them.